Light Up Ocala marks 35 years

Katie Pohlman @Katie_Pohlman

Wednesday

Nov 14, 2018 at 11:45 AM

Light Up Ocala is a tradition as old as the event for one Ocala family.

Meresa Boutwell, 46, has attended Light Up Ocala every year after her father took her to the inaugural event when she was 9 years in 1983. She then passed on the tradition to her children when her oldest was born in 1994.

Her children, now in their early 20s, still love to go to downtown Ocala's large holiday kick-off festival.

Last year, her daughter loved the roaming angels and toy soldiers, Boutwell said.

Boutwell and her family have a lot of fond memories of Light Up, which culminates every year with the dramatic lighting of downtown Ocala.

“The first year (I went) was amazing with a lot of music and bands and Santa,” she said. “The best year was when the real ice rink was downtown.”

The holiday family tradition continues Saturday as Ocala will host the 35th annual Light Up Ocala from 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday in and around downtown. City crews worked for about three weeks to string up lights and prepare the six-block area for the festivities, said Ocala Community Events Manager Jeff Inglehart. More than 100 people will work, in some capacity, to help out with the event.

Inglehart didn’t know the exact number of lights involved, but said it was a “boatload.” Same can be said for Light Up Ocala attendance, which averages between 20,000 and 25,000 people each year.

This year’s event will provide music, food, movies, parade, costumes, dancers and a living WhoVille. Inglehart said the city had to adjust the layout of the event to work around the construction of a new five-story, 107-room Hilton Garden Inn hotel just east of the downtown square.

So this year, WhoVille will be near the intersection of Fort King Street and South Magnolia Avenue near the Marion Theatre. Kids’ activities will be held in a parking lot north of Silver Springs Boulevard, across from Symmetry Café at 108 N. Magnolia Ave.

Santa Claus will make an appearance at Citizens’ Circle at City Hall.

There will be 28 food vendors and roughly 60 other vendors. A map of their locations can be found on the city’s website.

Inglehart said the parade will welcome a new group this year: the Howard Middle School marching band. They will walk with about 14 other groups north on Magnolia Avenue, starting at Southeast Second Street and looping around at Northeast First Street to come south on Northeast and Southeast First Avenue.

There will be three off-site parking areas, two of which will provide shuttle service to downtown. The Marion County Judicial Center parking garage at 110 NW First Ave. will open at 3 p.m., Inglehart said. The parking garage is a roughly three-block walk from the event area.

Attendees can also park at Marion Technical College at 1614 SE Fort King St. or next to the Reilly Arts Center at 500 NE Ninth St. Shuttles will begin to run around 3:45 p.m., Inglehart said.

The event is designed to set the scene for the holidays in Ocala. For Sheri Mruz, it does the trick.

Originally from Wisconsin, Mruz is now a habitual Light Up attendee. In a Facebook comment, she wrote she first went to the event in 2006, the year she moved to Ocala. Being in Florida, she wasn’t feeling the holiday spirit. But Light Up Ocala completely changed that, she said.